The inventor of the present application has previously disclosed various massage roller designs in U.S. Patent Application 62/210,950 entitled Adjustable Muscle Roller and filed on Aug. 27, 2015, U.S. Patent Application 62/376,882 entitled Dual Muscle Roller and filed on Aug. 18, 2016, U.S. Pat. No. 10,039,690 entitled “Dual Muscle Roller” and issued on Aug. 7, 2018, U.S. Pat. D833634 entitled “Dual Muscle Roller” and issued on Nov. 18, 2018, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 29/637,087 entitled “Dual Muscle Roller” and filed on Feb. 13, 2018. Each of these references is incorporated in their entirety herein by reference.
The present invention provides for improvements to muscle roller designs and is intended to allow for easy replacement and maintenance of the rollers, resulting in a more user-friendly, versatile, and economical design.
Of the competing muscle roller products on the market that use one or more axle-mounted rollers, very few of them have any mechanism to enable users to replace the rollers. The competing muscle roller products that do enable users to replace their rollers most often require tools or other time-consuming and difficult mechanisms in order to perform the replacements.
Enabling easy roller replacement allows the user to select from a variety of different rollers that may suit different needs. One roller may have a firm outer surface for aggressive massage therapy, and another may have a thick or soft surface to treat a sensitive, injured or sore muscle. Another may have surface contours to perform different types of physical therapy or massage therapy on specific muscles or other tissues. With the quick and simple roller replacement mechanism described in the present invention, users are able to switch roller types within an individual use session multiple times without the extra time or tools required for other replacement mechanisms. The present invention enables the removal and replacement of a roller using only one hand. A user can remove and replace a pair of rollers with a different pair in less than five seconds.
Removing the rollers from the frame may reduce the overall dimensions of the product, so that it may fit into a smaller container for shipping and for user transport. Enabling simple roller replacements also allows users to replace an individual damaged or defective roller without requiring technical support or requiring a complete product replacement.